Sometimes, your instructions will contain a lot of details. Get used to it. Make it a habit to read your instructions carefully. If something is unclear, ask for clarification. But don't complain about detailed instructions - coping with details is likely to be a major professional responsibility.

Writing: In general, your writing should be of professional quality. Spelling, grammar, and word usage should be correct and appropriate. Exceptions will be made when reasonable, e.g., if you quote someone who used imperfect grammar.

Students often criticize me for being "harsh and picky" over my concern for writing quality. If this complaint comes prior to the return of your graded homework, please note that those who don't learn to express themselves well may be professionally unemployable. If the complaint comes after the return of your graded homework, please consider the question: Don't you want to learn from your mistakes? Besides, correction and revision are so much easier when you use a computer than via older technologies (typewriters, handwritten documents) that they are regarded as part of good computer usage.

Perhaps of greater importance: Take pride in your work. Earn the right to be proud of your writing.

Arrangement of hardcopy: If you have more than one page, staple your pages together, so that the order of your pages is the order of the problems of the assignment.

• The requirement of stapling is for your protection - if you submit loose pages, one of them could be lost or separated from the rest of them (perhaps without containing your name).

• If, among your pages, there is a wide document (e.g., from a spreadsheet or database), prepare and staple as discussed here.

• The requirement of putting your pages in order encourages you to develop professional practices - you'd look pretty sloppy assembling a set of professional documents in incorrect order.

Formatting of documents: It's not sufficient to have the "right answers." Your documents should be formatted attractively. This does not mean that you should clutter your document with demonstrations of all the unusual features of your software that you know how to use; rather, it means you should keep your reader in mind as you compose your document, considering how to convey your document's information to the reader in a fashion likely to help the reader understand the document in reasonably natural fashion. Some software-specific tips:

• Excel

  • Cells and columns should be large enough to show their data. This applies to both the "usual" view, in which the values of formulas are shown, and the formulas view (Show Formulas).

  • Often, there is a natural vertical alignment of a column of numbers. If all the numbers in the column have the same number of decimal places (this includes the possibility of 0 decimal places), then it is often natural to align these entries to the right, so that the right-most digits are vertically aligned and the decimal points are vertically aligned.

  • Column headers should appear over the data they head in the "usual" view.  This usually will mean that a column header has the same alignment as the data below it in its column. Since numbers are usually aligned right, headers of columns of numeric data should, usually, be aligned right.

  • Rather than have a very wide column because of a multi-word column header, it is often more attractive to wrap text for the column header.

  • Charts should have sufficient explanation for a reader to understand their meaning.

    • Use the chart title and/or one or more axis titles to explain your chart.

    • Make sure your axis labels and your legends are useful. The usual way of producing useless (default) labels or legends is by neglecting to include cells with explanatory data (column headers, row headers) in the blocked data when you create the chart.

  • If a chart is too compacted to be easily read, stretch it.

• PowerPoint

  • Proofread, proofread, proofread. Writing errors will seem to leap off the screen at audience members who notice them, and will thereby undermine the impression you seek to establish as a competent representative of whatever it is that motivates your presentation.

  • Don't show off your mastery of visual or audio effects - use them in moderation, as they are useful.

  • Use graphics as useful, but don't clutter the screen with them to distract from or occlude your text.

  • Have good contrast between foreground (usually, text and graphics) and background ("theme" elements) so that your slides are easy to read.

  • For all text, use font sizes large enough to project well to the most distant point of the room in which you give your presentation. It's generally recommended you use 24-point or larger, but this will vary with the size of the room.

  • Use animation when you want to delay the appearance of a slide element. Often, you won't want your audience to read ahead of your talk.

    • Animate slide items to fit the logic of the slide - e.g., consider when you want an animated item to appear; consider if you want related items to appear sequentially or simultaneously and animate accordingly.

    • Don't animate all slide elements, as doing so causes a slide to appear initially blank, which may annoy your audience as poor management and a waste of time. Items you want visible when the slide first appears, such as a slide title, should not be animated.

  • Consider your audience as you choose entrance and departure effects for slide elements. What's appropriate for an elementary school audience or for an occasion when a humorous pause is appropriate might not be appropriate for a serious professional presentation; slow effects that might usefully amuse one type of audience can be annoying to another type of audience.

• Access

  • Cells and columns should be large enough to show their data.

  • In forms and reports, align horizontally those items that should appear so, and align vertically those items that should appear so.

  • In forms and reports, you don't have to accept the default layout. Use the Design View to move controls around, or to stretch them if they're too small, or to shrink them if they're too large, if such actions make the object more attractive to read.

Efficient practices

You should learn to use your own time efficiently. In Excel and in Access, it is often possible to produce "correct answers" in a variety of ways, some more efficient than others. For example, in Excel, you can compute the total of the entries of the cells in the range B2:B16 by any of the formulas

=B2+B3+B4+B5+B6+B7+B8+B9+B10+B11+B12+B13+B14+B15+B16

=SUM(B2+B3+B4+B5+B6+B7+B8+B9+B10+B11+B12+B13+B14+B15+B16)

=SUM(B2,B3,B4,B5,B6,B7,B8,B9,B10,B11,B12,B13,B14,B15,B16)

=SUM(B2:B16)

Since use of the fourth of these is far more efficient than the use of any of the first three, the fourth is the one you should expect will receive the most credit. Consider the amounts of work each of these styles of formula would require if, instead of B2:B16, the range of cells to be summed were B2:B5000 (this is not so unlikely; e.g., consider the problem of totaling salaries of employees of a large organization).

Some philosophy of grading

When I write on a submission, it's not always a criticism; and, sometimes when it is a criticism, it is not a deduction from your score. After all, some students would receive negative scores were I to deduct a point for every flaw. However, every flaw is fair game for penalty. I'm sometimes criticized for "taking off for things that were unnecessary." An implication of this complaint is that the complaining student should be graded as highly as other students who did better work; would that not be unfair? It's also important for you to

• absorb a lesson that will be essential in your professional life, that everything in your document matters and is important; and

• learn from your mistakes.

If I fill your hardcopy with notes on your imperfections, it's not personal, it's not because I crave a reputation as "tough," and it's not because I want to embarrass, intimidate, or depress you; it's because I'm responsible for teaching you, and you're responsible for learning from me. It's also because I want you to be successful in life, and you're more likely to be successful if you learn to improve, in part by learning from constructive criticism.

Among the reasons I'm called "harsh and picky": It's important for students to learn to deal with details and work with precision. This means even minor errors may cost points. If you lose a point over a relatively minor flaw, it's very unlikely to lower your final grade for the course, but the loss of a point should get your attention, so that you learn not to make that error again. Lest it be forgotten: the learning is the primary purpose of the course; the grade is secondary.

I don't owe you a high grade. What I owe you is a good contribution to the totality of your education, and an honest assessment of your work, including constructive criticism of its imperfections. I also owe an honest assessment to everyone who reads or is otherwise affected by your transcript1. I'll be very happy to give you a high grade if you earn it. More generally, I'll give you the grade your work earns, regardless of the class curve. How could an honest professor do otherwise?

Your opinions on sports, politics, and even on me, will have no effect on your grade - only the quality of your submitted work will count in your grade. I work at being fair in grading. I keep notes to make sure that when two students show the same imperfection, they lose the same number of points.

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1 These include:

• Potential employers and admission committees for graduate or professional schools

• Niagara University, the CIS Department, and me. Our reputations for good judgment and appropriate assessment are on the line.  E.g., if I get a reputation for poor judgment, I won't be able to help a student who requests a letter of recommendation, as my high regard for the student won't be taken seriously.

• The best students of the university, who are most hurt if the university gets a reputation for grade inflation, since the high grades they earn legitimately will be discounted, and since they are deprived of their chance to be recognized as outstanding if inflated grades result in lots of lesser students having similarly high grades.

• Your competitors for academic honors, scholarships, etc.

• You. Honest assessment of your work is, in the long run, more valuable to you than an unearned high grade. You need the benefits of constructive criticism. You need not to be encouraged to follow a career path likely to result in lack of success. If your abilities don't match your current aspirations, then the sooner you realize this, the sooner you can swap for another set of aspirations more likely to yield success. If you have ability but haven't been exerting enough effort, the sooner you realize this, the better off you'll be.